


Remains

by theoxfordcommando



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Returns after a year to post angst, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15139616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoxfordcommando/pseuds/theoxfordcommando
Summary: Leandra dies. A final failure, the proverbial last straw. Hawke breaks."Fenris was standing there, still in his armor from earlier that day. As he stepped into the room Hawke found himself praying that he didn’t smell of lilies, that Hawke hadn’t tainted and damned him as well."





	Remains

**Author's Note:**

> Man, it's been forever, but I'm back with a piece I wrote a year ago and never posted. I just love that good, good h/c.

The house was still.   
Horribly so.   
Hawke wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there, staring at the pocked, plastered wall without seeing it.  
He could see nothing but the grim performance that was playing itself in his mind’s eye, over and over again. 

There were the white lillies, fragrant, pungent. Their petals were soft and wrinkled, having been cut off from water and light for days. Bodhan had thrown them away but Hawke swore he could smell them still.  
Sweet, cloying, sickly.  
Then there was the mad rush through the sewers, a trail of yellowed notes scattered along the way like a twisted puzzle, their edges stained with coffee and ink and specks of what could only be dark, dried blood. Whose blood was the question. And it had not been one Hawke wanted answered, desperately trying to silence the voice in mind telling him that he knew exactly who it belonged to.  
And then of course there was the blood mage himself. Hawke found he couldn’t remember the man’s face in any great detail, as though he had been an inconsequential player in this tragedy. He was an inciting action, nothing more, and he may as well have died offstage. For the true piece de resistance had been his monster. The cobbled bride that wore his mother’s face, that in those last moments had still possessed his mother’s mind.  
She had been cold long before her heart ever stopped beating. Her skin had been clammy, her eyes glassy as she told him she loved him. Told him he had made her proud. The pounding of his heart had been deafening in his own ears as though it were trying to beat strong enough for the both of them. And then she was gone, and Hawke was left holding the body of a stranger, staring into his own mother’s dead eyes.

He didn’t remember much that happened after that. The exquisite tableau usually cut off there, leaving the rest fragmentary, blurred.  
He remembered coming home and seeing the lilies, remembered holding them for a moment, cradled like a child, before throwing them violently against the wall.  
He remembered stripping off his armor in the parlor, tossing it to the desk where it hit the cup of long cold coffee his mother had set out for him that morning.   
He remembered standing there in his mud stained shirt and breeches watching the dark liquid drip from the table’s edge, watched the growing black stain it left on the carpet.   
He remembered finally tearing away from the sight and making for the shower. He remembered the hours he spent there numb under the water, hot enough to burn, trying to rub the scent of lilies and chemical preservatives, of sickness and death from his skin, from his mind.

And now he was here, sitting on his bed, staring at the wall, his face a hard and solemn mask, seeing nothing, feeling everything.

He was broken from his sordid reverie when the door to his room inched open. Fenris was standing there, still in his armor from earlier that day. As he stepped into the room Hawke found himself praying that he didn’t smell of lilies, that Hawke hadn’t tainted and damned him as well. 

“I don’t know what to say, but I am here.” Fenris came close, slowly, like he was afraid. Hawke almost laughed; he knew he had never looked less frightening.  
Hawke met his eyes then, his face still a hard mask, unmoving. But he carried his pain in his eyes, and poorly. The sight of it nearly choked Fenris with its intensity. The strongest man he knew was here before him, shattered into pieces. 

“Just say something. Anything.” Hawke pleaded, barely more than a whisper. The sounds inside his head were deafening. His own consciousness had turned against him, violently, unimpressed with his latest and greatest failure.   
Fenris paused for a moment, as though still unsure that he belonged here, in Hawke’s space. Unsure if he had the right to be seeing what he was seeing.

“They say death is only a journey. Does that help?”

Hawke’s laugh was hollow and brittle, “Not really.”

Fenris took a few more cautious steps and when he was not met with rebuke he took a seat at Hawke’s side, just close enough that their shoulders didn’t quite brush together.   
After several long moments of silence, he spoke again;

“To be honest, I see no point in filling these moments with empty talk.”

He watched as Hawke nodded his head slowly, as though there was a great invisible weight that lay heavy on his shoulders.   
Fenris felt powerless, lost. This was not the kind of thing he knew how to do. He was not built for providing this sort of comfort, and a large part of him still felt that he was unworthy of being in this house, this room, here at Hawke’s side, after everything he had done.   
But the thought of leaving Hawke to suffer alone in the silence of an empty home had been so abhorrent to him, so acute and familiar a pain, that he would be damned if he didn’t do whatever he could to help, meager as it was. 

Hawke still had not moved or spoken, so Fenris began to remove his gauntlets, quickly completing his practised ritual of untying the red silk scarf from around his armor and retying it against the bare skin of his wrist. Hawke did not so much as glance his way.  
After setting the gauntlets quietly on the floor beside the bed, he moved with a determined confidence to set his hand on Hawke’s own. Hawke finally looked down then, turning his palm up so that their fingers could interlace.   
Something in him snapped then. Some last vestige of stubborn strength that had been holding back the flood of agony. Fenris saw the first warning of it in the twitch of his mouth and he braced himself, fingers tightening instinctively in Hawke’s grasp. 

The tears came then, ugly, wretched sobs that tore at Fenris’ heart. He held Hawke’s hand tightly in his own as the storm washed over the both of them.   
Hawke cried for his mother. He cried for is sister and his father. He cried for Carver, for the angry words he had thrown at him when he learned of their mother’s death.   
Hawke cried for himself, too. In a way he hadn’t allowed before. He cried for his broken family, his broken heart, for his faults and his failures, for the lost love he’d never deserved that sat beside him even now, holding onto him as though he were worried that Hawke would wash away. Fenris was here, trying so desperately to ease his pain.  
But there was so much pain.

When Hawke’s head began to droop, Fenris hurriedly removed his spaulders, guiding Hawke gently with his unoccupied hand to rest against his shoulder. He held Hawke like that for hours as time became intangible, immaterial.   
One hand held tight in Hawke’s own, the other carding softly through Hawke’s hair, Hawke’s face pressed into the crook of his neck.

Fenris looked down at the man as best he could from their current position.   
‘I love him.’ He thought, abruptly. There was no one else he could imagine doing this for. No one else whose pain could hurt his own heart just so. ‘Maker’s mercy, I’m in love with him.’  
This was perhaps the most inopportune time for such a revelation, but instead of being terrifying, Fenris found that the thought comforted him. It was like some final piece had clicked into place and everything made sense again. 

Eventually Hawke’s sobs quieted, his breaths evening out as he began to drift in his exhaustion. Fenris moved to rearrange him, letting go of his hand in order to urge Hawke to lie down, to allow himself to be tucked into soft sheets. When Fenris turned to grab his things and leave, Hawke’s voice stopped him.

“Please. Please don’t leave me. Just for tonight.”  
Fenris turned back to Hawke, saw the heartache in his eyes, the tear tracks that stained his cheeks.

“Alright.” was all he said. Removing the rest of his armor, Fenris propped up a few pillows and laid down beside Hawke, on top of the covers. Hawke was silent, but his expression spoke his gratitude. He moved in close, head pressed against Fenris’ hip, and Fenris’ hand fell to once again card through the man’s hair until gentle snores informed him that Hawke had fallen asleep.

Fenris did not sleep that night. He stayed awake there, in Hawke’s bed, his hand in Hawke’s hair. He had been deep in thought for some time, but the only conclusion he had reached was that he did indeed love Hawke, and that he would stay by his side as long as Hawke would allow it. 

Fenris rose to stoke the dying embers of the fireplace in Hawke’s room. The place had changed hardly at all since the last time Fenris had been there, nearly a year before. He had remembered it in vivid detail, and to be here now felt as though he’d stepped into some familiar dream. Here in the cool air, away from Hawke’s side, Fenris’ doubt began to creep in once again. He had no place here. He had given this up, a scared fool, and he had no right to try and reclaim it. He didn’t deserve this. And maker knows Hawke didn’t deserve any more pain.   
And so for the second time, Fenris fled like a thief from the Amell estate in the early hours of the morning.

 

Hawke woke to the sound of Cat barking downstairs. His mouth was dry and the skin of his face itched. Wiping at his eyes, he realised it was the tacky traces of dried tears that had been bothering him, and then the events of the night before returned to him at full velocity. Closing his eyes, Hawke allowed himself a moment as he tried to find his center, to bury his hurt once more.   
Opening his eyes, he glanced to his side. Fenris was gone. The imprint of him was still there in the sheets, but the bed was cold. Hawke huffed a dark laugh. He didn’t blame Fenris. This was simply how his life went.

Cat’s barking had stopped, but Hawke hadn’t heard anyone moving about the house.   
‘Of course you haven’t,’ the cruel voice in the back of his mind supplied, ‘everyone is either dead or gone.’  
Rubbing hard at his face with one hand, Hawke opened his door and stepped onto the landing. 

Hawke could safely say that one of the last things he had expected to find was Fenris, crouched low to the floor, patting his dog with one hand, the other hand holding a large paper bag out of the mabari’s reach.   
Fenris looked up as Hawke stepped onto the first stair.

“Hawke.” The elf stood and brushed himself off, ignoring the dog vying for his attention. “I, uh,” and there was something about him that looked almost abashed, “I brought you breakfast. You didn’t eat anything last night.”   
Hawke smiled at him then, small and weak, but sincere.

“You’ll join me, won’t you?” Hawke asked, and he almost winced at how raw his voice still sounded. 

“Of course. If that is your wish.”

“I’d want nothing more.” 

Fenris nodded then and carried the bag into the kitchen. He bypassed the dining room entirely and Hawke wasn’t sure if it had been intentional or not, but he was grateful. The dining room had been his mother’s space.   
Setting the bag down on the rough, wooden table, Fenris pulled out a smaller bag filled with sausage rolls, three different types of fruit tart, and two loose apples.  
Hawke looked down at the spread and felt his heart in his throat. 

“Thank you, Fenris.” He said, meeting the elf’s eyes and praying that his tone conveyed everything else he wasn’t strong enough to say in that moment. 

Fenris imitated his soft smile,  
“You’re welcome, Hawke.”

The two of them sat down then, together at the kitchen table in the soft morning light.

‘I haven’t quite lost everything,’ Hawke thought to himself, defiantly, as he reached for a strawberry tart. ‘I still have this.’

Fenris’ hand found his once again on top of the table. 

‘I still have this.’

**Author's Note:**

> Unending thanks to @gothicprincesswitch for her endless support and encouragement


End file.
